>He was taught that knowing something's name meant>only that you had memorized a name, not that you understood what the>thing was.>You can call a black hole a black hole all you want, we still don't understand what it is.

> I came from scientific background and one of the most important> things I> learned is call the things> by their name and their name only, that way everybody will> understand what> is what.>>> ...and imagine the discussions way back then when they were> deciding "what> was what"!! Now, we just take it for granted... ;-)

Funny. Richard Feynman related a story, by my recollection anyway,
that when he was a child his father told him names were the least
important thing. He was taught that knowing something's name meant
only that you had memorized a name, not that you understood what the
thing was.

Different strokes I guess.

You can call a black hole a black hole all you want, we still don't
understand what it is.
--
Scott Nelson
skot (at) penguinstorm (dot) comhttp://www.penguinstorm.com/

skype. skot.nelson

Comments

5 Jan 2006 - 12:36am

Luis Silva

2005

I agree with you, its way more important to understand something than to name it.

But as I said terminology is a very important issue especially in a team environment.

Just leave you with this quote:

" The communication of specialist knowledge and information, whether monolingual or multilingual, is thus irretrievably bound up
with the creation and dissemination of terminological resources and with terminology management in the widest sense of the word.
This process is not restricted to science and engineering, but is also vital to law, public administration, and health care, to
quote just three examples. In addition, terminology plays a key role in the production and dissemination of documents, and in
workflow. Terminology as an academic discipline offers concepts and methodologies for high-quality, effective knowledge
representation and transfer. These methodologies can be used both by language specialists and by domain specialists after
appropriate training. In addition, they form the basis for an increasing number of tools for the identification, extraction,
ordering, transfer, storage and maintenance of terminological resources and other types of knowledge."

>FWIW, I think naming them is a linguistic one: what you call water, a>significant slice of the world calls eau.

If you are working with French team and nobody speaks English I doubt you would use the term water, rather you would use the term
eau, because you want to be understood and you don't want to insert noise in your communication.

> Skot Nelson said:>>> He was taught that knowing something's name meant>> only that you had memorized a name, not that you understood what the>> thing was.>> You can call a black hole a black hole all you want, we still>> don't understand what it is.>> Well if you think like that I wouldn't wanna work in your team....>> Why make it harder, when it can be so simple...

Not so much me, as Richard Feynman. A man who, you know, won the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 and taught thousands.

I think the point of his repeating the story was that understanding
things is a noble goal, not that naming them was a bad one.

FWIW, I think naming them is a linguistic one: what you call water, a
significant slice of the world calls eau.
--
Scott Nelson
skot (at) penguinstorm (dot) comhttp://www.penguinstorm.com/